The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Kant was the inspiration for this and a little Matrix.

Ouch! Luckily I'm not thin skinned. lol

My post is a little confusing. I'm addressing several points and I didn't do a good job of making them clear. I have been told that since all religions are so different about their assertions then religion is shown to be just a bunch of bunk. The argument presented to me is that religion in general ...

Can you provide evidence that Dennett attributes political ideologies to religion? I would have though he would argue the exact opposite, but that's just my assessment. I never stated he attributes political ideologies to religion. I stated that all the horrible things he blames on religion are not...

The sum of human consciousness is merely a program, comparable to computer programming written in the biological language of genetic code. Our conceptions of history, of time, of space and extension, of reality and causal relations and necessity, even meaning itself are all simply consequences of th...

So, I think the point has been made: People can suck and they usually do. Oh my, does this mean me too?!?!?!?! Am I the only exception to this human shortcoming? Afraid not...

Why is the criteria concerning our supposed eternal afterlife to be irrational and accept things that I can't convince myself to accept? After I learned as much as I did about religion and why did people invent it, what purposes it used, what is the psychology of religious beliefs etc. I literally ...

I'd would assume it had been covered much much more than just a few times. It is more religion 101 than anything.

Nowhere in The Bible does it says Hell is a place of fear and torture, or hell is whatever. Hell is being apart from God, just as the Jews say Sheol, death the grave. Oh I agree. I don't presume to know what hell's qualities are. I think Dante envisioned the inner most circle of hell as horribly co...

Religion is mankind's most dangerous institution, followed closely by government. I would agree, but again, what makes them both dangerous is human nature not the institutions themselves. Just like a gun can be used to murder or to scare off an angry grizzly bear, so are these institutions. It is t...

This topic always gets people going, but it can’t be ignored. God doesn’t “send” you to hell any more than gravity can “push” you off a cliff. You take the step and then gravity takes over…falling is the consequence, facilitated by gravity, of a bad decision. This is an awful analogy but I’ve alread...

To look for a clear and concise message to ALL RELIGIONS is just as pointless as looking for a clear and concise message to ALL POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES. The nature of the ideas being discussed precludes such agreement. Totalitarianism and Democracy cannot by their nature be compatible; they are based o...

Felasco,
I couldn't have said it better myself. I agree with every aspect of your post! I love the idea that thought itself is in a sense the enemy and we will never actually reach a state where we all agree/are tolerant. It makes perfect sense.

I think religion is like language in the sense that it is simply an aspect of being human. I, as a believer, feel it is because there is a God and the human mind picks up on this fact. But, putting that aside, I believe a non-theistic civilization of any sort is quite improbable. There will always b...

Ginkgo,
I was referring specifically to his assertions about religion. What he claims are the products of religion, all the horrors it has produced, I say are not products of religion but of human nature.